Who’s Buying in Orange County?

Did you know 80 percent of sales in Irvine going to foreign buyers from China? This is just one example.

Most of the reports over the last few days have been “shocked” at the record number of cash buyers in the market. Nothing surprising here. This has been the juice of the housing recovery going back to 2008. Latin Americans are heavily purchasing in places like Miami while buyers from China are heavily focused in on California. What did stand out was a quote from Meyers Research regarding the Irvine housing market:

“(CNN Money) Miami, New York, Boston and coastal California cities are attracting a lot of foreign buyers who are paying in all cash, according to Jeff Meyers, founder of Meyers Research.

In Miami, Latin Americans are putting down deposits of 50% or more on apartments in the early stages of development, enabling builders to self-finance the rest of the building or leverage bank loans at attractive rates. The buyer then pays the balance in cash at the time of occupancy.

In California, Chinese nationals and immigrants are “parking their cash in single-family homes,” said Meyers.

In Irvine, Calif., for example, 80% of sales over the past year were to Chinese buyers, he said.”

This is a massive amount of targeted home purchasing in one city. One source reported that 7 out of 10 purchases were going to Chinese buyers, all with cash offers. These reports would come in every few months or so but interesting to see this coincide with the report above.

We already know that over 30 percent of all purchases in California are going to investors.

RE/MAX with over 90,000 Collection Specialist in 96 countries, makes RE/MAX Evolution in Laguna Beach poised to attract the right buyers for your property.